Starring Susan Hayward, Jo Ann Fleet, Richard Conte, and Eddie Albert
Directed by David Mann
Music and Lyrics by various
This week, we're going to celebrate Women's History Month with dramas and biographies about women who went through hell and lived to tell the tale. Lillian Roth was a major vaudeville headliner when she appeared in early talkies like The Love Parade and one of Paramount's more popular stars of the era. By the time this movie came out, it had all vanished in a haze of alcohol, bad marriages, and worse financial choices. Her autobiography on how she overcame her problems with alcohol and abusive relationships, I'll Cry Tomorrow, was an international best-seller.
Hayward started out as an typical cute ingenue in the late 30's. By 1955, she'd found her niche in harrowing portrayals of troubled women who overcame trauma to live successful lives. We've already seen one biography she starred in, With a Song In My Heart. How does she do with Lillian Roth's equally harrowing life? Let's begin with 8-year-old Lillian (Carole Ann Campbell) and her mother Katie (Fleet) as she tries to push her daughter into an audition for a hit Broadway show and find out...
The Story: Katie is determined that Lillian should have the chances she gave up to have a family. She does manage to get Lillian into a Broadway hit at age 6. Lillian (Hayward) keeps rising to the top, first as a vaudeville headliner, then in films at Paramount. Her mother's less happy when she becomes engaged to her childhood friend David Tredman (Ray Danton), claiming she's willing to give up her career for him.
She's devastated when he dies on the night of her show opening. Her inability to deal with the loss starts her drinking to forget the pain. One night, she gets so drunk, she marries Wallie (Don Taylor), a pilot, without thinking. The marriage is loveless when they realize all they have in common is drinking and ends in divorce. Likewise, her second marriage to alcoholic Tony Barderman (Conte) begins well, but degenerates into him beating her when neither of them will give up drinking. Returning home to her mother ends with them fighting over her choices and Katie projecting her desires onto her daughter.
After Lillian nearly jumps out her apartment window, she finally decides it's time to get real help and checks into Alcoholics Anonymous. She falls in love with her sponsor Burt McGuire (Albert), but he has his own issues with his polio. It takes her first group meeting and admitting all her struggles on the TV show This Is Your Life to make her see how addiction has impacted her life and taken her away from her first real, true love - performing.
The Song and Dance: No doubt about it. This is rough stuff, especially for 1955. Hayward earned a deserved Oscar nomination as the singer whose reliance on liquor to mask her inner demons came at a devastating cost. She's especially effective in the second half, when liquor and Lillian's bad relationships start to take a toll on her. Fleet nearly matches her as the domineering stage mother who shoves her daughter into the career she wanted. The harrowing script pulls no punches and can be hard to watch at times, especially if you've known anyone who has been addicted to alcohol.
Hayward claimed she wasn't a singer, but she does her own singing as Roth. Not only does she sound like Roth, but she has a fine, throaty voice. Makes me regret them using Jane Frohman's actual voice in With a Song In My Heart.
Favorite Number: Our first song is the sole large-scale production number. Roth really did sing "Sing You Sinners" in the 1930 Paramount musical Honey. Hayward throws herself into the big dance routine around a sketchy, stylized set with abandon. Our first nightclub routine gives us the song that would be Roth's signature throughout her career, "When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along." We also get a darker number later when she's drunk onstage, "Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe." Albert and Hayward perform all three in a medley near the end at Alcoholics Anonymous, along with another song from a 1930 movie that featured Roth, "The Vagabond King Waltz."
Trivia: Sandy Ellis was originally to dub Hayward, until MGM heard her sing and were impressed. Roth was initially upset when MGM opted to let Hayward do her own singing. Hayward went to Vegas to study Roth's style, and the two ended up being good friends.
Lillian Roth's life was even more difficult than what was depicted here. She actually went through six husbands, including McClure - they divorced in 1963. She did start on Broadway and in vaudeville as a child star, sometimes with her sister. Her mother did indeed manage her career and lived off her earnings, though Roth later claimed she wasn't as pushy as seen here.
She also readily admitted to being overly reliant on others to handle her decisions, including abusive husbands. Roth never regained the huge stardom she had in the early 30's, but she did become a character actress in nightclubs and stage shows like the Broadway musicals I Can Get It For You Wholesale and 70 Girls 70.
What I Don't Like: First and foremost, despite winning a Best Costume Oscar, they don't go in for historical accuracy at all. Other than some of the children's clothes in the beginning, it looks like 1955 for the entire movie. The gowns Hayward showcases are lovely, but nothing you can't see in countless other movies of the era.
Second, as mentioned, this is not sweetness and light. If you're looking for a more typical or happier musical, you're in the wrong place. It does end happily, but getting there is harrowing, especially for recovering alcoholics who may have gone through much of what Lillian does here.
The Big Finale: If you love Hayward or are looking for a dark warts-and-all show business drama, you'll want to check out Roth's journey to recovery, too.
Home Media: Can currently be found on streaming and on DVD, the latter from the Warner Archives.
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